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I never imagined that I’d one day utter the words (or write the words for that matter): A deer jumped on my car. But it is, quite unbelievably, a true statement.

As vast areas of trees are cut down to make room for “progress” in my area, the local wildlife has to find a new place to inhabit. Deer sightings are a common occurrence while driving on the back roads near my house. This time of year there isn’t a week that goes by that I don’t see a deer either on the side of the road or dead on the road. My only really close encounter with a deer came about 4 years ago when I was driving behind a large SUV. Out of nowhere, a deer runs full speed into the side of the SUV which was driving at about 45 MPH. The deer was knocked down, but got up and staggered off into the woods. I got out of my car the owner of the SUV got out of his to look at the damage. As you might expect, a huge dent in his passenger side door but no one was hurt.

That was my only deer experience until yesterday. I was driving on another back road around 8am with two cars in my lane directly in front me. All of a sudden I see the car in front slow down and eventually stop. The car behind him did the same. I followed suit. I see a deer sprinting toward the car in front before making a b-line straight for my car. The deer then attempted to jump over my car! I have a Jeep liberty and this was a small-ish doe, so there was no way she was going to make it over my car. And of course she didn’t. She didn’t even make it up on the hood the first try. She landed on the side of my front windshield and somehow got enough traction to finish the leap off my car before scurrying into the woods.

Fortunately, my car suffered little damage. The experience only lasted 4 or 5 seconds, but was quite dramatic for an early morning drive into work. I feared my car would be damaged more than it was. My windshield wiper was sticking straight out, there were scuff marks all over my hood and windshield, and I had a quarter-sized dent on the left side of the hood. I called the insurance company and they said they are getting inundated by all the accidents due to deer in the NC, SC, and VA areas, but this was the first one they heard of while a car was stopped ;-)

I know, I know, the odds of being hit by a deer a second time are probably about like being struck by lightning. And I know that never happens.